Source apportionment of airborne PCDD/F at industrial and urban sites in Busan, South Korea

Long-term atmospheric measurement of 17 total (gaseous and particulate) polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) has been made from 2007 to 2016 at five industrial and urban sites in Busan, South Korea, based on their persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity. In the present study, two pooled datasets covering a combination of 2 industry sites and 3 urban sites have been subjected to positive matrix factorization (PMF) to identify and quantify the major sources of PCDD/Fs. Additionally, PMF has been applied to the industrial urban dataset consisting of both polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and PCDD/Fs. The results show that the sum of PCDD/F mass (Σ17PCDD/Fs) at the industrial sites is determined by five major sources: non-ferrous metal production (33.7%), diesel vehicle emissions (30.2%), ferrous metal production (22.4%), other industrial emissions (11.1%), and traffic emissions (2.6%), while the PAH mass (Σ16PAHs) is predominantly associated with emissions from coal combustion, followed by traffic emissions. At the urban sites, the largest contribution to the Σ17PCDD/Fs was observed from transported emissions being emitted from metallurgical industry (75.5%), followed by diesel vehicle emissions (24.5%). The application of congener-specific toxicity to PCDD/F mass (Σ₁₇fg I-TEQ Sm^-3) indicates enhanced contributions from the ferrous metallurgical emission factor associated with penta- and hexa-chlorinated furans across the study sites.